Challenges and Opportunities for the Future of Media and Mass Communication Theory and Research: Positionality, Integrative Research, and Public Scholarship
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51480/1899-5101.14.1(28).1Keywords:
media studies, mass communication theory, continuity, discontinuity, infodemicAbstract
In this essay I intend to tell a story of media studies and mass communication research as a field, based on the work of the late Denis McQuail – and that of editing the new edition of his seminal handbook McQuail’s Media and Mass Communication Theory (McQuail & Deuze, 2020). Using McQuail’s historical storytelling method, I specifically look at the challenge for the field in the context of a global pandemic alongside an infodemic, at a time when the whole world faces the consequences of recurrent lockdowns, social distancing measures, and institutional pressures to stay at home. Media studies and (mass) communication research, while having a distinct narrative, as a field has only just begun to articulate its relevance to society – we have only just started to tell our story. Using developments in understanding the self as a research tool, the implementation of integrative research designs, and calls for engaged and public scholarship, the paper outlines challenges and opportunities for what we can do with our field.
References
Anderson, K., Nafus, D., Rattenbury, T., & Aipperspach, R. (2009). Numbers Have Qualities Too: Experiences with Ethno-Mining. EPIC 1: 123–140.
Archetti, C. (2020). Research, methods, and the Zen art of questioning what you know. Norsk Mediatidsskrift 107(2): 1–7.
Ball-Rokeach, S.J., & DeFleur, M.L. (1976). A dependency model of mass media effects, Communication Research, 3: 3–21.
Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid Modernity. Cambridge: Polity.
Bausinger, H. (1984). Media, technology and daily life. Media, Culture & Society, 6: 343–351.
Biggs, J. (1999). What the Student Does: teaching for enhanced learning. Higher Education Research & Development 18(1): 57–75.
Capobianco, R. (2010). Engaging Heidegger. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Carey, J.W. (1975). A cultural approach to communication, Communication (2): 1–22.
Castells, M. (2009). Communication Power. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Chadwick, A. (2017). The Hybrid Media System. Oxford: OUP.
Couldry, N. (2012). Media, Society, World: Social Theory and Digital Media Practice. Cambridge, UK: Polity.
Craig, R.T. (2008). For a Practical Discipline. Journal of Communication 68: 289–297.
Deuze, M. (2020). The Role of Media and Mass Communication Theory in the Global Pandemic. Communication Today 11(2): 4–16.
Deuze, M. (2021). On the ‘Grand Narrative’ of Media and Mass Communication Theory and Research: A Review. Profesional de la Información 30(1). DOI: 10.3145/epi.2021.ene.05.
Durham Peters, J. (2015). The Marvellous Clouds. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ellison, J., & Eatman, T. K. (2008). Scholarship in Public: Knowledge Creation and Tenure Policy in the Engaged University. Imagining America 16. Retrieved November 30, 2020 from: https://surface.syr.edu/ia/16.
Feyerabend, P. (1975). Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge. London: Verso.
Fiske, J. (1992). The cultural economy of fandom. In: L. Lewis (ed.), The Adoring Audience, 30–49. London: Routledge.
Fuchs, C. (2020) Everyday Life and Everyday Communication in Coronavirus Capitalism. tripleC 18(1): 375–399.
Gaudry, A.J.P. (2011). Insurgent Research. Wicazo Sa Review 26(1): 113–136.
Griffioen, N., Rooij, M.M.J.W. van, Lichtwarck-Aschoff, A., & Granic, I. (2020). Toward improved methods in social media research. Theory, Mind and Behavior 1(1): 1–15.
Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1994). Competing paradigms in qualitative research. In: N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (p. 105–117). London: Sage.
Hepp A., Hjarvard S., & Lundby K. (2015). Mediatization: Theorizing the interplay between media, culture and society. Media, Culture & Society 37(2): 314–324.
Hölsgens, S., de Wildt, S. & Witschge, T. (2020). Towards an Experientialist Understanding of Journalism: Exploring Arts-based Research for Journalism Studies, Journalism Studies, 21:7: 928–946.
Jacobson D., & Mustafa N. (2019). Social Identity Map: A Reflexivity Tool for Practicing Explicit Positionality in Critical Qualitative Research. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 18: 1–12.
Jensen, K.B. (2019). The Double Hermeneutics of Audience Research, Television &New Media, 20(2): 142–154.
Knight, J. (2011) Five Myths about Internationalization. International Higher Education 62, DOI: 10.6017/ihe.2011.62.8532 .
Lang, A. (2013). Discipline in Crisis? The Shifting Paradigm of Mass Communication Research, Communication Theory 23: 10–24.
Leavy, P. (2009). Method meets art: Arts-based research practice. New York: Guilford.
Lewis, S. C. (2020). What is Communication Research for? Wrestling with the Relevance of What We Do. In: M. Powers & A. Russell (eds.), Rethinking Media Research for Changing Societies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Livingstone, S. (2009). On the mediation of everything, Journal of Communication, 59(1): 1–18.
Macbeth, D. (2001). On “Reflexivity” in Qualitative Research: Two Readings, and a Third. Qualitative Inquiry 7(1): 35–68.
McQuail, D., & Deuze, M. (2020). McQuail’s Media and Mass Communication Theory. London: Sage.
Nielsen, R.K. (2018a). No One Cares What We Know: Three Responses to the Irrelevance of Political Communication Research. Political Communication, 35:1: 145–149.
Nielsen, R.K. (2018b). If journalism studies research want to be part of the conversation about the future of journalism, we need to start showing up. Rasmuskleisnielsen.net May 26, Retrieved November 30, 2020 from: https://rasmuskleisnielsen.net/2018/05/26/if-journalism-studies-research-want-to-be-part-of-the-conversation-about-the-future-of-journalism-we-need-to-start-showing-up/.
Rogers, R., & Niederer, S. (2020). The Politics of Social Media Manipulation. Amsterdam: AUP.
Scannell, P. (2014). Television and the meaning of ‘live’. Cambridge: Polity.
Schalet, A.T., Tropp, L., & Troy, L.M. (2020). Making Research Usable Beyond Academic Circles: A Relational Model of Public Engagement. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 1–21. DOI: 10.1111/asap.12204.
Springgay, S., & Irwin, R.L. (2005). A/r/tography as Living Inquiry Through Art and Tekst. Qualitative Inquiry 11(6): 897–912.
Stevenson, M., & Witschge, T. (2020). Methods we live by: Proceduralism, process, and pedagogy.
NECSUS_European Journal of Media Studies 9(2), 117– 138. DOI: 10.25969/mediarep/15344.
Tenenboim-Weinblatt, K., & Lee, C. (2020) Speaking Across Communication Subfields. Journal of Communication 70(3): 303–309.
Tracy, S. (2010). Qualitative Quality: Eight “Big-Tent” Criteria for Excellent Qualitative Research. Qualitative Inquiry 16(10): 837–851.
Wainwright, E., & Watts, M. (2019). Social mobility in the slipstream: first generation students’ narratives of university participation and family. Educational Review, DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2019.1566209.
Waisbord, S. (2019). The Communication Manifesto. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Wang, T. (2013). Big Data Needs Thick Data. Ethnography Matters, May 13. Retrieved November 30, 2020 from: http://ethnographymatters.net/blog/2013/05/13/big-data-needs-thick-data/.
Wang, T. (2016) Why Big Data Needs Thick Data. Medium, January 16. Retrieved November 30, 2020 from: https://medium.com/ethnography-matters/why-big-data-needs-thick-data-b4b3e75e3d7.
Witschge, T., & Deuze, M. (2020). From Suspicion to Wonder in Journalism and Communication Research. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 97(2): 360–375.
Žižek, S. (1992). Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture. Boston: MIT Press.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Polish Communication Association
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
